AMANDA SMITH PROJECT

Running head: Health Literacy 2

Health Literacy 2

INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK

Hello! You did a good job discussing your population along with 2 barriers and potential solutions. Nice work!

Health Literacy

Health literacy is the ability of a person to process and understand the necessary health information required to make informed health decisions (Stewart et al., 2013). Primarily, an individual must read and comprehend essential health information to be considered health literate. Research indicates that individuals who smoke express low cognitive ability and are likely to make meaning of important health warning concerning smoking. Smoking affects the vascular system, which may have negative impacts on the cognitive functions of an individual. Health care practitioners must ensure the patients' safety and that they are given the best quality care. The target populations must be considered and the population audience to meet the needs of the customers. It is difficult to target the appropriate audience while conducting health literacy since some audience may see the message as insulting, resulting in negative impacts on some individuals. Health care literacy has a direct effect on the effectiveness of marketing health care programs.

The target audience for my plan is tobacco smokers. The audience is among the people with low health literacy. They exhibit malicious health behavior as well as poor health outcomes. Nonetheless, they experience a high smoking prevalence and have a difficult time quitting. Despite the warning concerning smoking's health hazards, they continue with the act and do not care about their actions' long-term implications (McCormack et al., 2017). The use of relevant tools helps health practitioners to promote health literacy among the group. Besides, conducting assessments and tests helps in reaching the target audience. The test assessment is essential in implementing communication strategies that suit the target audience. The market plan will also have community outreach programs, where health experts reach out to the members of the society to teach them about the health effects of tobacco and recommended ways of evading the addictive effects of the drug.

The marketing plan will focus on the target audience's health literacy that ensures information perception is adequate and influences the desired change among the target group members. The strategies that will be essential to the plan include media literacy involving social media and billboards to ensure effective marketing practices and promote uptake in the target audience. Media literacy will positively impact the targeted group since media spreads complimentary value messages effectively and has strong persuasive influence among the target group (Stewart et al., 2013). Besides, it can reach many people who share the same characteristics as the target group. Similarly, media can easily be integrated with other marketing aspects to enhance the delivery of the plan.

Primarily, the use of media programs and other brochures and education endeavors will enhance the tobacco program's use and reduce the abuse of tobacco among the target group. The plan should take advantage of social events that attract many people to deliver their message. Most people are likely to smoke during parties and other events, which is an opportunity to reach the target population (McCormack et al., 2017). The first strategy to ensure the message reaches the target audience is writing the message simply and understandably to make it easy for the group's interpretation. Besides, the message can be written in the language that is best understood by the target group to facilitate understanding.

References

McCormack, L., Thomas, V., Lewis, M. A., & Rudd, R. (2017). Improving low health literacy and patient engagement: a social ecological approach. Patient education and counseling, 100(1), 8-13.

Stewart, D. W., Adams, C. E., Cano, M. A., Correa-Fernández, V., Li, Y., Waters, A. J., ... & Vidrine, J. I. (2013). Associations between health literacy and established predictors of smoking cessation. American journal of public health, 103(7), e43-e49.